CNN: King not taking on Gillibrand
Peter King made it official Monday. The Republican congressman from New York State announced that he won't take on Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand next year when the appointed senator runs for the final two years of Hillary Clinton's term.

CNN: Mortgage program hasn't helped enough, some say
When President Obama unveiled the Making Home Affordable Program in March, he said it would help "responsible folks who have been making their payments" reduce their monthly mortgage bills and avoid losing their homes to foreclosure.

CNN: Reid camp responds to highly critical op-ed
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday responded to a scathing column published in Sunday's Las Vegas Review-Journal that recounted an unfriendly encounter between Reid and the paper's advertising director, in which the Nevada senator told the executive: "I hope you go out of business."

CNN: Corzine camp slams Christie loan in new ad
New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine's campaign is staying on the attack, releasing a fresh negative ad that charges Republican rival Chris Christie has "one set of rules for himself, another for everyone else."

New York Times: Groundwork Is Laid for New Troops in Afghanistan
A new report by the top commander in Afghanistan detailing the deteriorating situation there confronts President Obama with the politically perilous decision of whether to deepen American involvement in the eight-year-old war amid shrinking public support at home.

Chicago Tribune: Rod Blagojevich book blames others
After myriad television appearances, radio shows and news conferences since his arrest on corruption charges, the seemingly omnipresent former Gov. Rod Blagojevich has made the case for his innocence again, this time in a 259-page memoir that offers small glimpses of both his rocky tenure and his upcoming criminal defense.

CNN: Fed-up fliers ready for rights
Claustrophobia was not a condition Bill Johnson understood. That changed on August 8 when he and his new bride, while returning from their honeymoon, found themselves among the 47 airplane passengers left trapped overnight on a tarmac in Rochester, Minnesota.

CNN: Police offer details of DJ AM's last day alive
As the pieces are still being put together to identify the cause of Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein's death, a police source tells PEOPLE that on Friday, August 28, the day he was later discovered dead in his Manhattan apartment, the celebrity deejay had sent his last text message to two friends at 1 a.m.

New York Times: Justice Dept. to Recharge Enforcement of Civil Rights
Seven months after taking office, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is reshaping the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division by pushing it back into some of the most important areas of American political life, including voting rights, housing, employment, bank lending practices and redistricting after the 2010 census.

New York Times: Montana Court to Rule on Assisted Suicide Case
Robert Baxter was by all accounts a tough man. Even in the end, last year, as lymphocytic leukemia was killing him, Mr. Baxter, a 76-year-old retired truck driver from Billings, Mont., fought on. But by then he was struggling not for life, but for the right to die with help from his doctor.

CNN: Iran prisoner beaten to death, coroner says
A coroner's report says that a man arrested in the violent aftermath of Iran's presidential elections died from beatings, Iranian media reported Monday in what appeared to be the first official confirmation of a detainee's death from mistreatment.

CNN: Videos show FARC captives
Police officers and soldiers held captive by the leftist guerrilla group known as FARC pleaded to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to negotiate their release in a series of nine proof-of-life videos released Monday.

New York Times: Son to Succeed Father as Iraqi Shiite Party Leader
One of Iraq’s leading Shiite political parties moved quickly on Monday to fill the vacuum left by the death of its influential leader last week, nominating his son to take over a party now poised to challenge Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki in national elections next year.